The Meaning of Christian Unity

In Who Really Cares About Christian Unity? (January) , Bruce D. Marshall holds up the Jansenists as models of fidelity both to truth as they saw it and to unity, since they never, for their part, broke communion with Rome, even as they denounced doctrinal decrees such as the bull Unigenitus on the basis of Scripture and St. Augustine.

Is it of any significance that a similar attitude animated the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre? And that it was Vatican IIs ecumenism itself which he came to perceive as an error against the unity of the true Church? At any rate, while denouncing the errors of Vatican II on the basis of tradition and infallible acts of the magisterium, Lefebvre continued to name the Pope in the canon of the Mass, like the Jansenists, even after John Paul II declared his episcopal consecrations schismatic, consecrations Lefebvre conferred not in denial of papal jurisdiction per se, but due to a state of necessity.

When Professor Marshall speaks of the risen Christ being absent from his Church, but in such a way that the Church somehow perdures, his ecclesiology coincides with the thesis of another traditionalist, M.“L. Guerard des Lauriers, O.P. (d. 1988). Des Lauriers found certain Vatican II teachings in contradiction with the previous infallible magisterium of the Church. Studying the abundant theology of loss of papal office through heresy (see Robert Bellarmine for instance), he concluded that Paul VI must have lost his authority from Christ to teach and govern, since a pope would have been protected from promulgating such errors. But just as Prof. Marshall thinks the Church somehow perdures even though Christ has abandoned her, Guerard des Lauriers thought the papacy perdures materialiter while lacking the forma which is Christ in his giving of authority; regular elections provide a human and historical (material) continuity that will be revivified when in the future a pope shall be elected who will not teach the errors of Vatican II. In the meantime, the Church will perdure without actual papal authority, as when a pope has died.

God, the risen Christ, and the Holy Spirit abandoning the Church”ideas such as these were applied to the popes of Rome by the Byzantine sedevacantist cited (on Christian funerals) in the Catechism of the Catholic Church , St. Symeon of Thessalonika. The Savior had abandoned the heretical popes according to this monk“bishop, who wrote, Let [the Latins] only show that the pope perseveres in the faith of Peter . . . and we will obey him not only as Peter, but as if he were the Savior himself. But if he is not the inheritor of the faith of the saints, then he will not be the inheritor of the Chair of Peter either.

Prof. Marshall pleads for divided churches to each acknowledge their incompleteness within one Body of Christ and to repent. But this above it all ecumenism is itself one of the divided positions within Christendom”witness the recent Russian Orthodox declaration identifying the Church with Orthodoxy. And Catholics would hope that Prof. Marshall might make his own the prayer of the twelve“year“old Elisabeth Heselblad, recently beatified convert and refoundress of the Brigittines: Lord, show me which of these churches is the true Church, the one fold under one shepherd where you want us all to be.

Br. Ansgar Santogrossi, OSB Mount Angel Seminary St. Benedict, Oregon

Given the many failed attempts by the Church in the century just concluded to foster, facilitate, manufacture, and negotiate its way toward Christian unity, one can empathize with the ecumenical burden expressed in Bruce D. Marshalls thoughtful essay  Who Really Cares About Christian Unity? 

Indeed, it is legitimate to argue, as Professor Marshall does, that the sort of ecumenism we have practiced has failed because God wants it to fail”legitimate, that is, to the extent that these attempts issue out of negotiation and human vision rather than inspiration of the Spirit and the heart of God. Truer words have never been spoken in an ecclesiastical context than the authors observation that officially sponsored ecumenism is not so much an affront to traditional denominational sensibilities as an irrelevance that keeps getting in the way. And I agree that for anyone who cares at all about Christian unity, the fact of separated communions, despite our best ecumenical energies, is a hard and bitter pill. But from precisely what does this bitterness derive? Should that elusive unity in the end be predicated, as Prof. Marshall believes, on eucharistic unity?

That a eucharistic notion of unity is too tenuous a criterion for Christian unity would seem to grow apparent from a cursory glance at the Churchs history. Forget the Reformation divide, which is the primary line of demarcation for the author. If the Churchs unity consists, more narrowly, in a common eucharistic life, then there has been no Christian unity for almost a millennium”i.e., since 1054.

The text of 1 Corinthians 10 and 11, material adduced by the author as support for eucharistic unity, loses its weight in light of its function in 1 Corinthians. Issues treated by St. Paul in chapters 10 through 14 of 1 Corinthians concern corporate worship by the congregation when it is assembled; Corinthian issues are inherently intra“community issues. The unity of Christs Church in its universal manifestation, by contrast, is a theme of Pauls letter to the Ephesians. Hence, a case for Christian unity must proceed from the relationship between the Head of the Church and the members of the Church, as Ephesians 4 delineates it.

Christian unity, in its cosmic dimensions, is both a confessional reality (I believe . . . ) as well as an ideal for prayerful pursuit (cf. John 17). The same epistle to the Ephesians acknowledges both elements; the confession of existing unity”There is one body (Ephesians 4:4)”is linked to the following imperative to strive for a visibly manifested unity”until all of us come to the unity of the faith . . . to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ (Ephesians 4:11“13).

In the conclusion of his essay, Prof. Marshall comes tantalizingly close to identifying baptismal unity as that which authentically unites all Christians. But alas, baptism is seen to be deficient, insofar as it unites us with the dead Christ, deposed from his cross and ready for the tomb. For theological reasons, then, I must respectfully take issue with Prof. Marshalls understanding of baptism. Romans 6:5, which is cited by the author to emphasize the Christians unity with Christs death in baptism, follows on the heels of St. Pauls two“pronged theological affirmation: Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4). Thus can the Apostle Peter write: And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you . . . through the resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 3:21). In baptism we are united not merely with Christs death but also with his resurrection. This resurrection has both future and present implications”a duality that is repeated again in Romans 8.

Hence, applauding Prof. Marshalls yearning for unity, Christians may appeal not merely to a eucharistic basis but also to a baptismal”or a broadly sacramental”basis for unity as we prayerfully heed our Lords command to manifest visible oneness. After all, the sacraments as a whole”not the Lords Supper alone”must be understood to constitute a mark of the Church and thus identify authentic followers of Christ at all times and in all places.

J. Daryl Charles Taylor University Muncie, Indiana

I read with interest  Who Really Cares About Christian Unity?  by Bruce D. Marshall. However, I was disturbed by Professor Marshalls reliance upon Israels divided kingdom as an analogy about the divisions in the Church signifying Gods abandonment and portending His judgment.

This assumes the Davidic Kingdom with its centralized rule as a model. Gods ideal had been forsaken during the time of the prophet Samuel. Israel, prior to King Saul, had almost no civil or religious centralization. The diversity of the twelve tribes might be a better comparison, rather than formal union under one person. If that is true, the situation is not nearly as dire as Prof. Marshall suggests.

Henry T. Barton Corona, California

Bruce D. Marshall replies:

Almost instinctively, we Christians try to subdue the threat to our life posed by our own divisions. Br. Santogrossi seems to see no problem here. Those who find themselves at odds with the one true Church over what the gospel requires (Protestants, Jansenists, or whatever) are simply Lefebvrite schismatics, who need to get into (or back into) this one Church. As claimants to the title of the (or a) true Church now generally recognize, though, the chief premise of this suggestion is simply false. There is division of the true Church and not simply division from it. However much the true Church may subsist in the Church of Rome, for example, according to the teaching of Vatican II (with which people like Lefebvre and des Lauriers mistakenly disagreed), even those who find themselves outside the Roman eucharistic communion may have a genuine, if imperfect, share in the life and reality of the true Church. The divided eucharist wounds all who are party to it”it wounds the true Church as a whole, and no one is above it. The advice that we seek the true Church is therefore of no help at all. The one true Church doesnt deliver us from disunity, but drops us right in the middle of it.

Daryl Charles incorrectly supposes that I share his contempt for modern ecumenism; he mistakes my description of the sentiments of others for my own opinion. Officially sponsored ecumenism has failed not because of the spiritual poverty of ecumenists, but because of the spiritual poverty of the churches they represent, whose profound desire to remain divided ecumenism has not been able effectively to escape.

Whatever his attitude toward recent ecumenism, Professor Charles apparently accepts one of its basic premises: that baptism is enough to unite the Church, and we can build on it in order to reach eucharistic unity. At least as Prof. Charles conceives it, this suggestion is exegetically implausible. Paul obviously doesnt regard Corinthian eucharistic factionalism as a merely local problem; the divided Corinthians show contempt for the Church of God (1 Corinthians 11:22), and not simply for the congregation at Corinth. Still less, as ecumenists have long rightly understood, can we treat the unity for which Christ prays in John 17 merely as a distant hope, since its absence entitles the world to reject the gospel.

But even if this attempt to manage division were exegetically sound, it has the disadvantage of unreality: it simply seems not to have worked. As John Henry Newman observes on a not wholly unrelated matter, Were it not for matter of fact, the theory would be great indeed; it would be irresistible, if it were only true. Of course baptism promises a share in Christs resurrection according to Romans 6:3“6, just as it even now gives us a share in his death. But how the Church will get from one end of baptism to the other”the present significance, as Prof. Charles observes, of the baptismal promise that we will rise with Christ”is not settled by the certainty that this promise cannot fail. Whether the Churchs way to the resurrection leads through its own death will depend on whether the Church can repent of its divisions”can actually walk in newness of life. Of that, alas, there is very little sign indeed.

The Religion and Politics of the Evangelicals

As an evangelical, I read George McKennas How the Evangelicals Saved America  (February) with a great deal of interest, but I take issue with the following propositions: 1) that there was a large gap between the religion of the evangelical masses and the politics of the Whigs; 2) that evangelicalism is chiefly experiential, without rituals and dogmas; 3) that Methodism was originally a big tent religion.

While the evangelical masses certainly did not share the deism of Jefferson and Paine, their religion had a lot to do with the ideals of consent of the governed and the political supremacy of law over the officeholder. The bulk of believing Americans during the eighteenth century were of the Reformed persuasion (a.k.a. Calvinists). Their British and European forebears had already produced a tradition of political theory, exemplified by such authors as John Knox, Christopher Goodman, John Ponet, Theodore de Beze, Francois Hotman, Johannes Althusius, Samuel Rutherford, and others. These writers all derived governments from the consent of the governed, subjected the ruler to law, and affirmed a right of resistance. The classical catechism of Anglophone Calvinism, the Westminster Larger Catechism (1647“49), devotes more space in its exposition of the Fifth Commandment (fourth to Lutherans and Roman Catholics) to the sins of superiors (parents, masters, rulers) than to the sins of inferiors (children, servants, citizens). Perhaps one reason why these people were open to the political ideas of the Whigs was that they sensed a kinship between Whiggery and their own tradition of political thought and organization.

The various shades of evangelicalism, from classical Calvinism to Pentecostalism, all have their distinctive doctrines, some of which are fiercely cherished (consider how differing interpretations of saving faith and the meaning of adult immersion keep Baptists and Campbellites separate to the present day). The doctrine of justification by faith was a staple of the biblical Christianity preached by such stalwarts as Edwards, Whitefield, Tennent, Freylinghausen, and others. Similarly, the Wesley brothers had fallings out with Whitefield and Toplady over predestination. Most evangelicals also looked askance at the anti“Trinitarianism sweeping eighteenth“and early“nineteenth“century New England. And, I dare say, if walking the sawdust trail isnt a ritual, what is?

I agree, however, that there was a tendency, at least after the Second Great Awakening, to stress experience over doctrine. And this raises a further problem in the thesis that evangelicalism saved America. Looked at closely, this experientialism is not too far from the radically anti“doctrinal stance of liberalism”which represents the self“destruction of American Protestantism and its laying society wide open to all the baleful idiocies against which First Things so eloquently protests. I cant help but note that apart from the last, crumbling bastions of hard“core confessional Lutheranism and Calvinism, American evangelicalism also has its voices calling for openness to the sexual revolution, radical feminism, goddess worship, and Third Worldism (full speed ahead to 1968).

Early Methodisms harsh attitude towards Calvinism and Calvinists is scarcely big tent. (Lincolns birth among Primitive Baptists and his wifes association with Old School Presbyterianism may have prompted the Methodist Peter Cartwrights charging him with being an infidel.)

If the evangelicals saved America, it was because their preservation of historic Christianity in larger or smaller doses served as the social leaven that once leavened the whole lump of the republic.

Peter J. Herz Carbondale, Illinois

George McKenna replies:

I just read over my article and am trying to figure out why Peter Herz thinks I argued that there was a large gap between the religion of the evangelical masses and the politics of the Whigs. There is not a word to that effect in the article, and in other recent writings I have discussed at length the ties between the evangelicals and the Whig Party.

His other criticisms also seem to be based on misunderstandings. When I spoke of early American Methodism as a big tent religion I did not mean that it did not differ theologically from Calvinism but that it welcomed blacks and women into its ranks, and even elevated some to leadership positions. It was a demographic big tent. Even so, as the nineteenth century progressed, the doctrinal differences among evangelicals began to melt away, and here Mr. Herz apparently agrees with me. Its just that he doesnt like what he considers the post“1968 effects of the meltdown: the sexual revolution, radical feminism, goddess worship, and Third Worldism. This of course is entirely beyond the scope of my article, which was about the beneficent social effects of evangelical religion in the early years of the nineteenth century. Here again, Mr. Herz and I seem to be in substantial agreement: he observes, correctly I think, that the evangelicals Christianity served as the social leaven that once leavened the whole lump of the republic.

As for the meaning of ritual, the misunderstanding may be mutual. As a Catholic I tend to think of it as something more formal, structured, and deeply rooted in liturgical tradition than walking the sawdust trail. But that may be too narrow a definition.

What Mr. Rose calls Lutheran irony and Lutheran composure are true and shared as a stance toward human life in the world, because they tap into something more than mere Luth­ eranism. Lutherans do not seek to establish a distinctive identity, but want to remain mere Christians. Lutheran irony reflects nothing less than Christian realism. Lutheran composure arises, I suggest, from the merely Christian distinction between the certainty and clarity of our status coram Deo , and the ambiguity and contingency of our existence in the world.

First, avoid any mention of the equal protection arguments actually made in the Supreme Courts opinion, arguments that sound remarkably like liberal expansionist/activist interpretations of the Fourteenth Amendment (although these are usually made on behalf of folks the Amendment was actually intended to protect rather than presidential candidates). I realize the Court does not really want anyone to read its opinion”it fell back on a per curiam form, and the two swing justices refused to affix their names to any part of it”but it may be worth a look in light of the rights judicial arguments over the last few decades.

Second, make the absurd claim that the decision actually opposes judicial activism by checking an out“of“control Florida Supreme Court. Thank goodness the federal courts are ready to step in and tell us what state election laws actually require when state courts dont produce the interpretations federal judges think appropriate. If using transparently flimsy reasoning to take over a political process properly settled by a) the voters of Florida, acting under laws passed by b) the Florida legislature, including contest provisions empowering c) the Florida courts to oversee recounts, leaving any final Electoral College disputes to settlement in d) the United States Congress is a way of resisting judicial activism, then the cure looks strikingly like the disease.

Third, argue that the U.S. Su­ preme Court was correct to stop the Florida courts from trying to change election laws after the election. Never mind the legitimate issue of when interpreting laws becomes changing them (usually at the point we dont like the interpretation). This argument is actually one set aside by the majority of the Court, but it nicely deflects attention from the equal protection arguments that they did use.

Fourth, just as Clinton tried to shift the apparently plain meaning of the word is, shift an apparently clear 5“4 vote to a much more comforting 7“2 one. Usually, the vocal presence of four dissenting justices makes this impossible, but its worth a try.

The conservative obfuscation concerning Bush v. Gore is unfortunate. At the very least, a closer examination would solve a mystery troubling the right for some time now. Why, conservatives ask, do black voters insist on staying loyal to a liberal camp that takes them for granted and offers nothing but hollow rhetoric and failed social programs? Why dont black voters respond to the rights message of cultural conservatism, economic opportunity, and individual responsibility? Why, in short, dont black voters trust the right? Let no conservative ever ask such questions again. Bush v. Gore has answered them.

Black Americans know that when push comes to shove they still cant trust the right”not even to stay faithful to its own principles. The five (yes, only five) majority justices in Bush v. Gore have proven so again, and your journals silently rolling over in the face of the Courts decision has done nothing to change that impression. Shame.

James Nuechterlein defends the Supreme Courts decision in Bush v. Gore as the least messy solution available to avoid what might otherwise have evolved into a constitutional crisis. Thats a plausible reading of what happened.

How did we end up in such dire straits? Mr. Nuechterlein places the entire blame on the Florida Supreme Court, which prolonged the recount in an effort to ensure a final result consistent with voter intent. But what are we to make of the role of the Florida legislature, which resolved to select Republican electors even if Mr. Bush received fewer votes than Mr. Gore? Mr. Nuechterlein passed over that aspect entirely because the legislature, as he put it, was constitutionally charged with selecting [Floridas] electors.

So the prudential judgment of a closely divided court in a case of first impression brings us to the edge of disaster while the contempt of a legislative majority for our democratic traditions is of no consequence? Its that kind of tortured logic that has left me feeling more like a Democrat these past several months than at any time in recent memory.

Berry Friesen Lancaster, Pennsylvania

I am very disappointed in First Things response to the U.S. Supreme Courts Bush v. Gore decision, which effectively decided the presidential election. James Nuechterlein called it far from indefensible, while Richard John Neuhaus opined that the decision was the right one. Not so very long ago, First Things came close to advocating civil disobedience in response to court decisions that were not nearly as egregious an expansion of federal judicial power at the expense of citizens and the several states. The immediate intent of the decision may arguably have been to rein in an out“of“control state court. However, the expansive (to say the least) view of the equal protection clause relied on by Chief Justice William Rehnquist and his colleagues insures that the decision will be cited as precedent by judicial activists seeking to have federal courts impose their views on states and localities.

In order to understand how they could support such a decision, I would appreciate answers from Mr. Nuechterlein and/or Father Neuhaus to two counterfactual questions. First, if the facts had been reversed and the Gore campaign had been seeking to reverse the Florida court, do they honestly think that Justices Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and the rest of the majority would have used the same equal protection arguments and reached the same conclusion, stopping the recount and giving Gore the presidency? Secondly, if the facts had been reversed and a liberal majority of the Court, using the same equal protection arguments, had given Gore the presidency, would they have supported the decision, or would they have condemned it as the latest example of the judicial usurpation of political power?

Jack Patkus Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

I am saddened by your editorial estimate of the 2000 election. Whether I was correct or not, I judged for years that First Things represented a credible conservative voice given to engaging the culture wars with integrity. Now I fear that you have become just another partisan warrior for whom credibility and legitimacy are less important than victory.

I respected your willingness a few years ago to raise the difficult subject of a judicial usurpation of our democracy. In the face of the invective and vituperation of your critics, you placed before us the possibility that our government was increasingly a judicial oligarchy, a regime no longer grounded in the consent of the governed. Russell Hittinger wrote, Since the political common good depends on no branch of government taking more than its share of authority, obedience [should] not be given to an act that violates the foundation of the rule of law ( The End of Democracy ? FT, November 1996). At this latest moment when the Supreme Courts of both Florida and the United States overreached by acting in violation of the constitutional prescription of legislative remedy in electoral matters, the best that you seem to be able to argue is that the wrong of the lower court justified the wrong of the higher. But Hittingers point remains: Why should we obey an act that violates the foundation of the rule of law? Why should we consent to the illegal appointment of this President? Because conservatives did the deed?

Gordon Scoville Newton, Kansas

RJN replies:

Before and after the election outcome was determined by the U.S. Supreme Courts intervening to prevent the Florida Supreme Court from rewriting the election laws, James Nuechterlein and I were agreed that, had Mr. Gore prevailed by the laws in force on election day, or even by the changes imposed by the Florida court somehow resulting in his winning a majority in the electoral college, he should be recognized as the legitimate President. We make no secret of the fact that we are glad that did not happen. But our devotion to the rule of law, and therefore against the judicial usurpation of politics, has in no way been compromised by partisan interest.

James Nuechterlein replies:

In  Winning Semi“Ugly , I argued essentially that the U.S. Supreme Court majority had excellent prudential reasons, and defensible (if arguable) constitutional reasons, for ruling as it did in Bush v. Gore . I therefore do not consider the decision an act of judicial usurpation. As I said, Not every active use of the Supreme Courts authority constitutes an exercise in judicial activism. Most of the points raised by my critics I dealt with in the original article, and I will not burden readers by repeating what I said there.

One matter I did not address was the majoritys reliance, in part, on the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. That indeed could be used by a Court so inclined to vastly expand the Courts role in interpreting state election laws. But as a number of observers have noted, the majority, aware of that danger, said in effect that this was a narrow decision addressed to a unique set of circumstances and therefore not a basis for a wholesale expansion of the Courts power. The majority understood, in other words, that hard cases make bad law”and acted accordingly.

Anti“Judaism and Anti“Christianity

With regret I write to say that I will not be taking up the recent invitation I received to renew my subscription at a generous rate. The reason is what I find to be the appalling remark by Richard John Neuhaus, in an effort to balance the acknowledgment of a long history of Christian anti“Judaism that was exploited by the Nazis, that there was also a long history of Jewish anti“Christian hostility ( While Were At It, February ).

What can the latter term possibly mean? Does the sheer refusal of Jews to regard the Christian religion as true merit comparison to the long history of Christian pogroms against the Jews? Nor is the long history of Christian violence against Jews that you go on to acknowledge balanced, as you imply, by the long history of Christian peoples providing refuge, albeit often insecure refuge, for Jews: against what was the refuge being provided except the persecution by other Christians? Should Jews therefore feel grateful to Christianity, as distinguished from individual Christians, for that occasional refuge? Surely your statement that since Christians were primarily in charge, Christians bear more responsibility than Jews for how [their relations] did turn out severely understates the matter as well.

I applaud your concluding acknowledgment that Christians, and . . . Christianity, bear a large measure of responsibility for the rise of Hitler and the Holocaust. But the remarkable qualifications of this acknowledgment quoted above so weaken the acknowledgment as to render it in my judgment embarrassing and even offensive.

David L. Schaefer Professor of Political Science Holy Cross College Worcester, Massachusetts

RJN replies:

My comment no doubt runs against the grain of the achingly correct line reinforced by, for instance, James Carrolls recently published Constantines Sword (see review elsewhere in this issue), which depicts two millennia of Jewish“Christian relations in terms of the unremitting persecution of Jews by Christians. The history is a great deal more complicated than that, beginning with the apostolic era and continuing for centuries. See, for example, Robert Louis Wilkens John Chrysostom and the Jews, which describes the ways in which Christians reacted to a large and very hostile Jewish community of the time. True, Christian refuge was provided against other Christians, but also, and very importantly, against Muslim rulers. (See The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude by Bat Yeor.) In retrospect of the Holocaust it is very easy to forget this history. With respect to that unspeakable catastrophe, and contra Professor Schaefers misreading, I did not intend and did not suggest a symmetry of moral responsibility between Jews and Christians.

Procedure and Substance

I write this letter to take issue with a small, yet significant, point Richard John Neuhaus makes about the recent decision of Duke University to permit the blessing of same“sex unions in Duke Chapel ( When Tolerance is Trump , Public Square, February). Father Neuhaus cites Stanley Hauerwas for the proposition that in contemporary liberalism the procedural overrides the substantive, and compromise in the name of tolerance displaces the deliberation of truth. A more appropriate statement might be that todays hard left permits the procedural to override the substantive, but only in the service of achieving the desired substantive end.

Leftists are quite willing to disregard the procedural when it suits them. This has been on display most prominently in the last several years with the investigations surrounding former President Clinton. Each time a duly qualified official sought to conduct an investigation of a Clinton scandal using an appropriate process, the left demonstrated its contempt for the procedural by obstructing and otherwise diverting the investigation at every turn. Thus, we were treated to the transformation of a serious inquiry about potential perjury and obstruction of justice by the President into a sideshow about whether an investigation into the Presidents sexual behavior was appropriate. Once the inquiry could be portrayed as a systematic violation of the Presidents privacy, facts and law became irrelevant and the investigation was doomed.

Once we accede to the lefts definition of the terms of debate, the debate is over and we have lost. The appropriate process was rigged from the start. Permitting the blessing of same“sex unions was not a compromise in the name of tolerance; it was the end sought to be achieved, as one more front in the war on traditional values. No process which achieves a result that undermines an institutions fundamental principles could ever be called appropriate.

Benjamin E. Landon South Williamsport, Pennsylvania

A Failure to Communicate

 When Bishops Speak  (Public Square, February) speaks clearly about the need to improve communications between the bishops and the laity in the Catholic Church. Never has there been a time when the bishops guidance was so essential to cut through the deliberate and unintentional obfuscation of moral issues in what passes for public debate today.

Yet from my lay perspective, our shepherds frequently fail to connect with and energize the members of the Church. I believe there are two principal causes for this failure to communicate.

First, the positions of the U.S. Catholic Church often seem to be driven by political considerations. When Bishops Speak sheds some needed light on the narrow path the bishops walk between politicization of the pulpit and moral guidance. The obligation to be shepherds of all the faithful clearly argues against the partisan positions and endorsements practiced in some churches. However, that same obligation would seem to argue against temerity toward the IRS or a lack of forcefulness when addressing moral issues. Our young people ask, What Would Jesus Do? and perhaps the bishops should ask their advisers the same question.

Second, instead of speaking in terms of moral principles, the bishops tend to speak in terms of specific legislative programs and positions, often raising questions about their own credibility. The inappropriate pastoral letters mentioned in When Bishops Speak are good examples of the problem. Specific guidance may have been required for an uneducated Church years ago, but now the Church needs to also speak to an educated laity. Outlining clear principles instead of specific positions could energize the laity to apply their collective knowledge and experience to some of the tough moral issues of our day. Instead, the laity often feel patronized instead of energized.

Superficial Judgment

The autobiographical nature of the book makes it extremely valuable. Corti himself experienced what he writes about. This is World War II history up close and personal.

Another aspect of the book, sadly to a great extent now also history, is the morality possessed by many of the characters. They speak to us of a more idealistic life, encompassing respect, fidelity, and selflessness.

Occasionally, literary judgment should bow to works of such substance and we should cherish their authors while they are still with us.